88 FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. 



Virginia botanist, had made Ray, the celebrated English natu- 

 ralist, acquainted with it. The plant was sent in a living state by 

 Bartram to Collinson in England, in 1730. So I suppose by right 

 this beautiful genus of American plants should have commemorated 

 the name of one or the other of these early and enthusiastic Amer- 

 ican botanists rather than that of the foreign explorer from the far 

 away shores of the Baltic. But no doubt the modest Quaker nat- 

 uralist was quite satisfied that his friend and correspondent from 

 over the seas should be associated with one of our most inter- 

 esting flowers. 



If one examines a newly-opened flower he will find that around 

 the edge of the bottom of the saucer-shaped part of the corolla 

 there are ten little pockets, and that into each one of these is thrust 

 an anther, the filament arching over from it and running down into 

 the tube of the corolla, by the side of the pistil, which runs up 

 rather high and stiff in the centre. Now it is found that the fila- 

 ments of the stamens are elastic, and that if by a little quick blow 

 upon the corolla, or by pushing the edge of it out, the anther in the 

 pocket is liberated, it will fly up with a quick motion. It is also 

 found that the pollen is held in two little sacs which open by 

 small holes at the top, and therefore that the whole stamen is not 

 unlike a piece of whale-bone with two quills tied to the end, filled 

 with fine shot. If the whale-bone is bent and then the end sud- 

 denly released, it will spring forward and the shot will be pro- 

 jected some distance. So Dr. Gray says, the stamen is a contriv- 

 ance for discharging pollen at some object. " If the stigma around 

 which the stamens are marshalled, be that object, the target is a 

 small one ; yet some one or more of the ten shot might hit the 

 mark. But the discharges can hardly ever take place at all with- 



